Why Do We Exist?

[Marblehead]

In my mind, it's just LOVE, Tao, Self.....there's not some complex reason or difficult answer.

 

Just love.

Sounds like a good plan. I suggest holdihng to it.

[Marblehead]

If it had an intent, then it wouldn't be a whim, it would be an intention.

 

i think that's as close as it gets to an explanation that we're ever going to get."

That's a new view for me. Acceptable, I think.

[Flolfolil]

That is because you made the fatal mistake of asking why at some point in your life. There is no answer. You gonna' go crazy looking for one.

oh i agree with you, and this belief very much works for ME

 

but some people will create a meaning, and that answer is just as valid as a non answer

[Marblehead]

oh i agree with you, and this belief very much works for ME

Great!

 

but some people will create a meaning, and that answer is just as valid as a non answer

Yes, but it would not be valid for everyone.

 

Just as my opinions and understandings could never be valid for everyone. We all need our own answers.

[Flolfolil]

Emptiness is totally misunderstood especially by most people who think they are Buddhists.

i have ideas about it, but i hesitate to call it emptiness.

 

care to explain your understanding?

[Marblehead]

i have ideas about it, but i hesitate to call it emptiness.

 

care to explain your understanding?

I do not try to explain emptiness because it is a direct contradiction to thought itself.

 

I always take the Taoist view of fullness. And although I have never before (to my recall) spoken to this when speaking of 'emptiness', I also view the totality as completeness.

 

Now, in my understanding, the Buddhist concept of 'emptiness' is directed to the concepts of non-permanance and co-dependance. Nothing exists independant of other things. I think that this might have been why the Buddha himself did not accept the concepts of gods.

 

For me, completeness suggests that everything is exactly as it must be at any given point in time. (But this does not negate change because everything is subject to change over time. Some things just take longer to change than do other things.)

 

For me, fullness is itself the purpose of all things including human life. Without human life there would not be fullness, the universe would be incomplete.

 

And besides all that, if my chair didn't exist my ass would be on the floor.

[Flolfolil]

For me, completeness suggests that everything is exactly as it must be at any given point in time. (But this does not negate change because everything is subject to change over time

Hah, i wish people would realize this when they feel the need to take offense at my user title

[Jetsun]

We are part of the evolutionary drive for existence to become aware of itself.

[Marblehead]

Hah, i wish people would realize this when they feel the need to take offense at my user title

But most of us want to force change upon others. (Yes, I do it too.) This is when we need tons of 'wu wei'. When we are in the state of 'wu wei' there is no need to change others.

[Marblehead]

We are part of the evolutionary drive for existence to become aware of itself.

You said that nicely with just a few words.

[Rara]

Are you sure about that?

 

I suppose that next you will state that my chair doesn't exist.

Exists within your perception, yes. Like everything in my room right now exists for me. What More_Pie_Guy is saying is more on the quantum mechanics level...I think. We perceive it to be real but we are merely just a dream in some other mind that we're stuck inside.

[nine tailed fox]

for fun

[nine tailed fox]

oops

Edited August 27, 2013 by nine tailed fox

[Marblehead]

Exists within your perception, yes. Like everything in my room right now exists for me. What More_Pie_Guy is saying is more on the quantum mechanics level...I think. We perceive it to be real but we are merely just a dream in some other mind that we're stuck inside.

Yeah, but I like to pick on More Pie Guy whenever I can. His beliefs seem to be good for him.

 

I don't normally go to levels I am incapable of understanding. Right here on my chair is a good place for me at the moment.

[Marblehead]

oops

I know how to do those.

[Tatsumaru]

I will tell you the hard truth. Are you ready ? No reason.

[nine tailed fox]

seriously

 

i have been asking these questions from a very long time

 

like

 

why do we exist ?

 

why is there a need for samsara, ? wouldnt it be a more sane choice to just be nothingness ?

 

why would you create a fake world and than ask fake people to become enlightened ? lol, are you playing a video game or what ?

 

why

 

why am i not Lord Shiva , Lorrd Vishnu or any other supreme god (lol)

 

etc

 

 

and the answer is very simple

 

ask this question when you become enlightened , than we will see

[silent thunder]

Looking for answers to deep metaphysical questions is like chewing on bones. For me it's all about process, not result.

Often lots of work, with the only tangible reward being, spending some time thinking/talking about some potentially very cool ideas.

 

I've heard that Buddha would never answer such questions, or responded only with silence when asked.

For easily, I can spend my entire awareness on the 'what ifs' and I guess for some, the implication is that time spent on this is a waste as any answer I give is as good as any answer anyone else gives, or no answer at all.

 

But even if there no answer, the process and the play is answer enough for me and following these trails has on occasion led to realizations of real worth. One of my favorite things to do, is spend hours late in the evening, smoking, drinking and talking about the what ifs with an equally curious, deep minded fool such as myself.

[Thunder_Gooch]

Are you sure about that?

 

I suppose that next you will state that my chair doesn't exist.

 

Nothing exists.

[Thunder_Gooch]

 

And besides all that, if my chair didn't exist my ass would be on the floor.

 

Your ass, your chair, and the floor, do not exist any more than you do.

[Thunder_Gooch]

http://www.classicreader.com/book/1370/11/

 

The Mysterious Stranger by Mark Twain

 

 

 

Chapter 11

For as much as a year Satan continued these visits, but at last he came less often, and then for a long time he did not come at all. This always made me lonely and melancholy. I felt that he was losing interest in our tiny world and might at any time abandon his visits entirely. When one day he finally came to me I was overjoyed, but only for a little while. He had come to say good-by, he told me, and for the last time. He had investigations and undertakings in other corners of the universe, he said, that would keep him busy for a longer period than I could wait for his return.

"And you are going away, and will not come back any more?"

"Yes," he said. "We have comraded long together, and it has been pleasant--pleasant for both; but I must go now, and we shall not see each other any more."

"In this life, Satan, but in another? We shall meet in another, surely?"

Then, all tranquilly and soberly, he made the strange answer, "There is no other."

A subtle influence blew upon my spirit from his, bringing with it a vague, dim, but blessed and hopeful feeling that the incredible words might be true--even must be true.

"Have you never suspected this, Theodor?"

"No. How could I? But if it can only be true--"

"It is true."

A gust of thankfulness rose in my breast, but a doubt checked it before it could issue in words, and I said, "But--but--we have seen that future life--seen it in its actuality, and so--"

"It was a vision--it had no existence."

I could hardly breathe for the great hope that was struggling in me. "A vision? --a vi--"

"Life itself is only a vision, a dream."

It was electrical. By God! I had had that very thought a thousand times in my musings!

"Nothing exists; all is a dream. God--man--the world--the sun, the moon, the wilderness of stars--a dream, all a dream; they have no existence. Nothing exists save empty space--and you!"

"I!"

"And you are not you--you have no body, no blood, no bones, you are but a thought. I myself have no existence; I am but a dream--your dream, creature of your imagination. In a moment you will have realized this, then you will banish me from your visions and I shall dissolve into the nothingness out of which you made me....

"I am perishing already--I am failing--I am passing away. In a little while you will be alone in shoreless space, to wander its limitless solitudes without friend or comrade forever--for you will remain a thought, the only existent thought, and by your nature inextinguishable, indestructible. But I, your poor servant, have revealed you to yourself and set you free. Dream other dreams, and better!

"Strange! that you should not have suspected years ago--centuries, ages, eons, ago! --for you have existed, companionless, through all the eternities. Strange, indeed, that you should not have suspected that your universe and its contents were only dreams, visions, fiction! Strange, because they are so frankly and hysterically insane--like all dreams: a God who could make good children as easily as bad, yet preferred to make bad ones; who could have made every one of them happy, yet never made a single happy one; who made them prize their bitter life, yet stingily cut it short; who gave his angels eternal happiness unearned, yet required his other children to earn it; who gave his angels painless lives, yet cursed his other children with biting miseries and maladies of mind and body; who mouths justice and invented hell--mouths mercy and invented hell--mouths Golden Rules, and forgiveness multiplied by seventy times seven, and invented hell; who mouths morals to other people and has none himself; who frowns upon crimes, yet commits them all; who created man without invitation, then tries to shuffle the responsibility for man's acts upon man, instead of honorably placing it where it belongs, upon himself; and finally, with altogether divine obtuseness, invites this poor, abused slave to worship him!...

"You perceive, now, that these things are all impossible except in a dream. You perceive that they are pure and puerile insanities, the silly creations of an imagination that is not conscious of its freaks--in a word, that they are a dream, and you the maker of it. The dream-marks are all present; you should have recognized them earlier.

"It is true, that which I have revealed to you; there is no God, no universe, no human race, no earthly life, no heaven, no hell. It is all a dream--a grotesque and foolish dream. Nothing exists but you. And you are but a thought--a vagrant thought, a useless thought, a homeless thought, wandering forlorn among the empty eternities!"

He vanished, and left me appalled; for I knew, and realized, that all he had said was true.

Edited August 27, 2013 by More_Pie_Guy

[steve]

For me, fullness is itself the purpose of all things including human life. Without human life there would not be fullness, the universe would be incomplete.

I have to disagree here. The universe would be just fine without human life.

If human never existed, the universe would not know the difference (nor would we).

If we go extinct, it will be Ziran and things would carry on just fine....

 

 

Regarding Buddhism -

To say that nothing exists, whether us or a chair, is a misinterpretation of the Buddhist view of emptiness, in my opinion.

The more accurate way to express sunyata is that nothing has independent, inherent existence, in and of itself, separate from everything else; and yet things cannot be said to be non-existent either. All things are fundamentally inter-related and can be said to 'exist' (or arise/originate) dependently on all other things (pratitiyasamutpada).

This is an important distinction because Buddhism is not nihilism.

Just my opinion, and as others have pointed out, I'm not much of a Buddhist scholar.

 

 

For me the "why" question of existence, and in general, is a peculiarity of the human being and is a consequence of the verbal nature of our thought process. Having an intellectual and verbal explanation for things creates an illusion of security. It is also useful in a practical sense, but not so useful in metaphysical and spiritual matters.

The universe has no need of explanation, nor is it likely that we could conceive of a satisfactory explanation conceptually, even if one did exist.

The best reason for our existence, IMO, is that we are 'of ourselves so' - Ziran.

[skydog]

Looking for answers to deep metaphysical questions is like chewing on bones. For me it's all about process, not result.

Often lots of work, with the only tangible reward being, spending some time thinking/talking about some potentially very cool ideas.

 

I've heard that Buddha would never answer such questions, or responded only with silence when asked.

For easily, I can spend my entire awareness on the 'what ifs' and I guess for some, the implication is that time spent on this is a waste as any answer I give is as good as any answer anyone else gives, or no answer at all.

 

But even if there no answer, the process and the play is answer enough for me and following these trails has on occasion led to realizations of real worth. One of my favorite things to do, is spend hours late in the evening, smoking, drinking and talking about the what ifs with an equally curious, deep minded fool such as myself.

 

Yes, I can see why some people get annoyed by such conceptual comments like you dont exist (I have sorted shyed away from the subject) due to feeling like it really ungrounds me, have worked in being more grounded.

 

Went for a walk for about an hour and a half, and just focused on walking (not focusing, sort of like zazen, where you sit, and thats it, no isntructions) I dont pay attention to sense perception. I feel like there is a me before I was born, I can also feel like lower dan tien buzzing and the energy going up and then down with every breath, sort of like sat kriya,

 

I also find it takes some adjusting between "switching from formless to functional ego"

 

Not sure, why Im writing this, I guess I just want to share my thoughts haha.

[Marblehead]

I have to disagree here. The universe would be just fine without human life.

If human never existed, the universe would not know the difference (nor would we).

If we go extinct, it will be Ziran and things would carry on just fine....

Hehehe. I just knew you would fully understand what I said. I didn't even understand it!

 

You are absolutely correct Steve.

[Marblehead]

Regarding Buddhism -

To say that nothing exists, whether us or a chair, is a misinterpretation of the Buddhist view of emptiness, in my opinion.

The more accurate way to express sunyata is that nothing has independent, inherent existence, in and of itself, separate from everything else; and yet things cannot be said to be non-existent either. All things are fundamentally inter-related and can be said to 'exist' (or arise/originate) dependently on all other things (pratitiyasamutpada).

This is an important distinction because Buddhism is not nihilism.

Just my opinion, and as others have pointed out, I'm not much of a Buddhist scholar.

That is my understanding as well. And you are right, Buddhism is not nihilistic. But so many people make it sound to be such.